31 Days of Halloween (2015)
by The Black Sun's Daughter
Summary: A collection of drabbles for each day of October, all with a Halloween-y vibe, some scary, some funny, some eerie.
1. Off His Leash

He never took Mum's ring off, always on its cord 'round his neck.

He was his mother's son.

The lesson had been dinned into his head since he could understand English:

Never take off that ring. Bad things will happen.

And he never had.

Until two nights ago, when the cord snapped whilst they were chasing dinosaurs.

Stephen brought today's paper, showing the team.

A body had been found in New Forest, ravaged and mangled by what looked like a giant dog.

 _Bugger._ He had to find his ring.

He was his mother's son, after all.


	2. Wolfsbane

She always wove monkshood flowers into her hair the week of the full moon.

The _bisclarvet_ were considered nothing more than myth and fancy.

But she had seen them. Had hunted and killed them. Had lost friends to them.

She asked Matt for one of the monkshood plants from his lab.

They were offensive to the senses of the _bisclarvet_ , even in human form, especially when the moon waxed full.

Two days before the full moon, Sir James approached her.

He took one sniff then began to sneeze and cough violently.

Emily was glad she had kept her silver knife.


	3. Vampire Science

It was easy for him. He'd been born with it.

Mum was a nurse. She got what he needed from the hospital when he was a kid.

Now he volunteered at the local blood bank every other week.

He was always careful about it. Keeping it a thermos or in a coloured bottle.

At the flat, he hid it in a mini-cooler under his bed so Abby wouldn't find it in the fridge.

It was easy most of the time.

Working at the ARC was harder.

Being around people that constantly got wounded.

Sometimes he was certain he'd go mad.

Connor sat by the microwave, waiting for his liquid lunch to warm up.

Trying to drink it cold was vomit-inducing.

He actively tried to avoid drinking at work. Too easy to get caught.

But Abby had cut her hand today, and she always smelt _so very good._

Which meant he was taking lunch early.

Now warm, he took it out and unscrewed the cap.

Jenny walked past. Paused. Sniffed at the air.

She smiled his way, showing sharp, delicately curved canines.

He saluted her with his thermos wryly. She winked.

At least _someone_ here understood.


	4. Love and Monsters

He'd take the monsters over her any day of the week.

He knew the creatures. Understood them.

They showed their teeth in warning.

They hunted their prey with intent to kill.

They didn't play with their food.

Her smile could be a warning or an invitation.

She hunted her prey, but to kill or to own?

She played mind games with the best of them.

Some days she seemed to like him. Others she'd despise him.

The monsters were easy.

Love was not.

Especially when it came to loving Jennifer Lewis.

But he still loved her anyways.


	5. The Unquiet Dead

They never left her alone.

Helen could barely sleep.

What rest she got was plagued by nightmare dreams of them both.

One torn and seething, the other a pale ghost image.

No matter what she did, they would always come back.

Soon she was almost certain that she'd end up going mad, if she wasn't already.

When Stephen died, they cursed her a thousand times over.

Days after, Stephen appeared. Ripped and bloody, silent accusation in his eyes. He had no throat to curse with.

And soon, Nick joined their ranks, standing beside Claudia Brown and Captain Ryan.


	6. All In The Cards

Her sister dragged her to the psychic despite Jenny's protests.

The King of Cups. A symbol of quiet strength, reassurance, wisdom.

The Queen of Coins. A business woman, patron of the arts.

The Lovers. A temptation of the heart.

The Three of Swords. The emotions suffering beneath the intellect.

The Two of Swords. Doubt, powerlessness, and fear.

The Tower. Destruction as well as liberation.

The Nine of Swords. Terror, grief, and letting go.

The World. The end of one cycle of life and the beginning of the next.

Jenny had never believed in tarot cards before. Why start now?


	7. The Invasion

What better way to hide than in plain sight?

Go to school with them, work with them, live in flats with them, share kisses with them.

Nobody would ever suspect that.

Humans look for what is out of the ordinary.

Except the unordinary ones can be the most ordinary of them all.

Claudia Brown can recognise another of her species on sight, spot the red marble out of all the green whilst humans are colourblind.

Connor's ploy is genius.

Nobody would suspect the boy that believes in aliens actually is one.

They never suspect the meek civil servant, either.


	8. The Girl in the Fireplace

He had stopped questioning her appearance.

She always appeared on the opposite side of the flames when he lit his fireplace, sitting in a separate room.

When the fire was out, there was nothing but solid brick.

She protested his mission whenever she appeared.

"I have to do this," Matt insisted.

"You will disappear if you change the past. Or become someone else entirely."

"My life for the world's? I'll take that."

He asked the question that'd been on his tongue since he met her.

"Who are you?"

"I am what happens when you change the past."


	9. The Mind of Evil

In plenty of ways, Connor Temple was the most harmless person she knew.

But at the same time, he was the most dangerous.

Nobody else seemed to know it.

They couldn't see past the outside, the secondhand clothes and nerdy trivia.

She saw what lay within, and it frightened her as well as comforted her.

She had seen him go head-to-head with Helen Cutter and come out victorious.

Connor Temple had one of the greatest minds of the 21st century.

She trembled to think what would happen if he walked Helen's path instead of Nick's.


	10. The Nightmare of Eden

The Pliocene landscape is beautiful.

It is untouched by man, no pollution or roads or buildings.

Nothing but an untamed wilderness stretching out forever.

In moments like these, Danny can almost understand why Helen didn't want to come back.

Who could resist something like this, being the pioneers?

Now, however, the beauty of the landscape is tainted.

He sits with one arm around a weeping, shaking Abby, unspeaking.

No words can heal a broken heart.

The Pliocene is pure and beautiful and lovely.

Connor will never see it.

He will never come home.

The raptors made sure of it.


	11. The Burning

In the end, it is her independent nature that is her downfall.

He always knew that it would be so.

He just never knew what part he would have in that downfall.

He gets to the village only few days before she does.

He drops hints, whispers things in the ears of the villagers.

The people of this century are as skittish as rabbits, just as easy to frighten.

She arrives in the morning; she's arrested before sundown.

Her cursing and shouting serves only to seal her fate.

Nick Cutter watches as his wife is burned as a witch.


	12. The Beast Below

Cutter had come to terms with the fact that he wasn't quite human anymore.

The direwolf had left him more than just a bite wound.

He never expected to react to like this, though.

Her walk, her voice, her scent...

She made him want to drag her into his office and bend her over the desk.

The beast had claimed her as _his_ mate, now it was just getting the man to agree.

His opening came in the form of a Halloween costume party.

She had come dressed as Red Riding Hood.

 _My, my, what full lips you have..._


	13. Is It Art?

Ryan had long since come to terms with his...what? Existence?

He couldn't say 'life' since he knew he was dead.

He wouldn't say 'afterlife' because he figured that would involve pearly gates.

He hated the word ghost.

Ryan was tied to Cutter, the one that'd witnessed his last breath of life.

He faded in and out of awareness.

But he was sticking around longer each time.

"What in the hell is _this,_ Cutter?"

Ryan sat in the office for hours, staring in puzzlement at the matrix.

"God, why couldn't someone _sane_ see me die instead?"


	14. Freedom

He is free, _finally_ free.

No more New Dawn, no more Prospero.

No more April, no more Philip.

He'd been dragged around like a puppet on strings for far too long.

The marionette has cut his own ties.

He sits on the floor in the wreckage of his lab.

The knife feels warm in his hand, gleaming silver where it isn't dripping red.

He hums softly under his breath, running a finger along the edge of the blade.

 _I've got no strings._

 _I once had strings, but now I'm free._

 _There are no strings on me..._


	15. The Deadly Assassin

He found her wandering lost through the eras, a castoff from another timeline.

At first, he almost thought she was mute.

She wasn't. She'd lost all will to speak.

She was full of potential, though.

Like his own precious son, she could be shaped, moulded into a tool to save their future.

Training, ruthless, brutal training, reformed the wandering girl into Gideon's weapon.

Sharp and keen as a blade, a wellspring of hatred towards those that corrupted time for gain.

She was a failsafe, should Matthew falter in his mission.

A failsafe he hoped to never use.


	16. Warchild

War was a word that Matthew Gideon Anderson knew very well.

He was born into it, lived with it every day of his life, survived in it.

War.

Against the Predators eternally hunting outside.

Against an earth that could no longer support them.

Against even each other, psyches frayed and unravelling from lifelong fear and imprisonment.

Living the normal life wasn't easy for him.

It was a task, an effort, because he didn't fit in with them.

None of them had seen what he had, had felt the fear and the hunger.

He was a creature of war.


	17. The Smugglers

They'd been doing this for years before Nick Cutter came to the Forest of Dean with Stephen Hart.

Oysters called them anomalies.

They called them Rabbitholes.

They helped dozens through.

Oysters lucky enough to escape.

Refugees of Court and Crown.

Those tired of a word of instant gratification.

They were known only as the Smugglers back home.

Using one's real name was as good as signing a death warrant.

Connor's brother was their only living contact on the other side.

Claudia had lost her twin years ago, captured by Suits on a raid.

 _"Off with her head!"_


	18. The Witch's Familiar

When Christine Johnson took over the ARC, Becker wasn't very surprised, though he acted the part.

Performing a coup de grace with such swift and sudden lethality was her forte, after all.

He helped his friends escape before she could sink talons into them.

He knew better than anyone what would happen if she got hold of them.

He played his part, the "good little soldier boy," as Quinn so tactfully put it.

If only they knew how close he'd come to falling back in old habits.

Familiars were never supposed to deny their witches orders, after all.


	19. Witch Mark

The Weavers could always be recognised by the mark, a birthmark on the left palm shaped like a star.

It was always there. No Weaver had ever been born without it.

Weavers: those that could create magic, rethread the fabric of reality.

And Jenny's family had been killing them for the past millennia.

The last time they allowed Weavers to live, it resulted in a war that plummeted the world into the Dark Ages.

 _Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes._ The War of All Against All.

Jenny had trained since she was old enough to hold a blade to keep their hard-won peace.

Even now, she carried at least three knives on her at all times, cleverly hidden.

They were made of obsidian, the only thing that could truly kill Weavers.

She hadn't used them for years, though.

She thought she might never have to.

Until she first saw Connor Temple without his gloves on.

He'd burnt his hand and torn off the smouldering fabric, hissing in pain.

"Would you hand us a sticking plaster, Miss Lewis?" he asked, holding out his left hand.

On his palm was a wine-coloured birthmark in the shape of a star.


	20. All-Consuming Fire

Abby wanted to lie, say that the ridiculous geek was only her flatmate.

But she couldn't exactly lie when his elemental power sparked hers.

Only soulmates could do that, make each other's magic waken.

But she refused to acknowledge that bond, let them both be as powerful as they could, _should_ be.

She was Ateş, and to accept the bond was to be consumed by her own fire.

She failed to realise that Connor was Dünya, the earth to ground and anchor her.

She held the fire at bay.

She couldn't be burned again.

Soulmates be damned.


	21. Blood Heat

"Nick!"

Claudia's gasp was quiet and breathy, hardly more than a whisper in the darkness.

Her hands clutched tightly at his back, one of his knees pressed between her thighs.

His arms were around her, one hand splayed across her back, the other buried in her hair.

The rain felt cool and soft on her skin, like faint kisses in the darkness.

He pulled his mouth from her throat, breath shuddering.

Red oozed down her skin, the same red on his lips.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He repeated it over and over.

"I was just... _so_...hungry."


	22. Unnatural History

His family was...complicated.

Gideon wasn't his actual father.

Matthew Anderson wasn't his actual name.

He was _from_ the future. He wasn't _born_ in the future.

He'd been born near the turn of the century. The 19th century.

He found the man after a hundred years' search.

He managed to get Connor alone after the Spinosaurus was dealt with.

"Jonathon," he greeted.

"Quincey."

It was a name he hadn't heard in so long, it hardly felt real.

"I've missed you, Father. I never stopped looking."

Connor smiled. "You're as stubborn as your mother."


	23. The Sound of Drums

Sometimes Stephen got the feeling he knew Connor.

It was strange and came in passing flashes.

Glimpses of the two of them in other places, other times he didn't recognise.

With the flashes came skull-splitting headaches that pounded in his head like drums.

He wished he could explain it, or at least make it stop.

The worst came the day he saw Connor with a silver fob watch in hand.

He had to call in sick the rest of the day, the headache was so awful.

He sat with a matching watch in hand.

The drums grew louder.


	24. Carnival of Monsters

Jess had remarked to him once that she'd never been to a funfair before.

So, for their first date, he decided to take her out to one.

And the anomaly had opened right in the middle of it.

With a host of creatures spilling through.

Joy.

Naturally, the ARC came in full force.

The SFs were rounding up the rest of the creatures.

Jess looked ready to cry, and he nudged her lightly.

"Now we won't have to wait in line. The place'll be cleared out for hours."

"Let's skip the Monster Maze, though."

"Good idea."


	25. Grimm Reality

Matt had been hunting her for months upon end.

She'd slipped from place to place, leaving death in her wake.

Six teenagers in a dorm.

A young girl visiting her grandmother.

There were more than could be counted.

Her viciousness and lethality had earned her the moniker of "The Wolf."

She never contested it.

And now he had her.

Matt lifted his crossbow, the silver bolt gleaming.

"Sir Huntsman, you persist," she growled.

"Don't make this harder on yourself, Mrs. Cutter."

She only laughed. "My, what a big heart you have. All the better for eating."

He fired.


	26. Death and Diplomacy

Christine Johnson didn't believe in ghosts.

Until she summoned one by accident: Nick Cutter.

The problem was, though, Helen only told Christine how to call him.

She failed to mention how to _get rid of him._

So now she was stuck with a stubborn, smart-arsed Scottish ghost following her around.

"Don't you _ever_ go away?" she groaned.

Cutter only laughed, sitting on her desk just to annoy her; she couldn't exactly push him off.

"Nope. This is what you get for listening to my wife."

"I hate you."

"And I'm _dead._ What do I care?"


	27. Business Unusual

"Hello?"

Matt did _not_ scream, flail out of his chair onto his arse, or make any sort of unmanly noise at all. Nope.

He twisted around, staring at the foliage which screened most of his office.

Staring back at him was a young woman that looked vaguely familiar and supremely confused.

"Who are you?" he demanded. "How'd you get in here?"

"There was an anomaly. Stephen and I went to look with Captain Quinn, and...I can't remember...Where am I?"

"Who are you?" Matt repeated, a little gentler.

"I'm Claudia Brown. Who're _you?"_

 _Oh, bugger..._


	28. The King's Demons

She went by Lorraine Wickes now.

Her real name had 83 letters and 15 syllables. And that's just her first name.

It used to be that she thought about killing him thrice a day if not more.

She had been around since the construction of the pyramids.

He had her making his fucking _tea._

But in the past few millennia, she had come to like him.

Respect him, even.

The magic binds no longer chafed the way they had.

She would protect him with her life if necessary.

Mages were breakable.

Demons were a hell of a lot hardier.


	29. The Dark Path

The torture had gone on for so long he could no longer remember its start.

He stopped hoping that they were coming for him.

It was obvious by now that they weren't.

Not for _him_.

Her words were honey, thick and sweet, oozing through his mind, other voices echoing below.

"They never appreciated you."

 _"...and slightly sad."_

"Never believed you."

 _"Silly arse."_

"Never trusted you."

 _"Just go home."_

"Never saw what you could be."

 _"Not much there, is there?"_

"But I do. We could do incredible things together, you and I. Together."

His eyes drifted up to hers.

"Yes."


	30. The Underwater Menace

People were being snatched near bodies of water, turning up days later, floating dead.

Cutter thought that it was another creature like the mosasaurus.

Abby was afraid it was more of the seal-like Mer creatures.

Stephen just wanted to shoot something.

Connor and Claudia were spending their nights all over London.

On the Thames docks.

On the shores of reservoirs.

On the banks of rivers.

They asked the same questions a thousand ways.

They got the same vague not-answer a thousand times.

They kept digging, though.

The merfolk of London hadn't been this aggressive for a century.


	31. Deceit

Becker was facing a dozen hungry pyroraptors without his team or his gun.

Pyroraptors were small, but they were also vicious and deadly.

He'd gotten separated from the others in a landslide this side of the anomaly.

He was by himself.

Suddenly a loud cackling drew the attention of the pyroraptors and him.

Coming towards them was a nightmare of a creature.

It was black and spiny, with an indeterminable number of limbs, hobbling.

It was making an awful hyena-like cackle.

The pyroraptors shrieked and scattered.

He ran.

Or, rather, tried to.

Three steps, and the thorny vines that swarmed the ground caught his feet and tripped him up.

As he tried to kick free, the creature loomed over him, grabbing his ankles.

"Help! Danny! Abby, Connor, someone!" he shouted.

"Becker!"

He froze.

"It _is_ us!"

The creature was no creature.

Danny had Sarah on his back, side-by-side with Connor, Abby sat on his shoulders.

They were covered head-to-toe in black mud from the landslide, twigs and leaves stuck in it.

Danny grinned, his teeth bright white against the filth. "Scared you, solider boy?"

"Nice costume," Becker panted.

He'd never live this down.


End file.
